How does a country work?

How do we describe what it has and does?

And how do we analyse it over time, and compare it with other countries?

That's what the paper on national capacities is about: the five factors a country mobilises to achieve national outcomes.

www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/pub...

How has the UK's approach to national strategy changed?

Were there times when it was clearer, more successful, more strategic?

What brought about these changes?

That's the theme of the historical paper: periods and turning points in UK strategic ideology.

www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/pub...

Delighted to share two new papers from my work at the @blavatnikschool.bsky.social this year!

They offer complementary perspectives on national strategy:

📜 Tracing the UK’s national strategy since the 1850s

⚙️ Modelling the capacities every nation must mobilise

www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/fellowship/h...

Delighted to say that *How We Think* is included in this week's @waterstones.bsky.social 25% off pre-order promotion!

If you buy it on the Waterstones website or app between now and 17 October, and enter ‘OCTOBER25’ at the checkout, you'll receive 25% off RRP!

www.waterstones.com/book/how-we-...

What thinker type are you? Your family? Your friends? Your colleagues?

Discover the ten different ways of thinking we inhabit, and where we get them from. Join us on a journey deep into our minds, and how they are shaped by the world around us.

How We Think. Out 2026 with @hodderbooks.bsky.social!

How We Think is the product of over 15 years of research in academia and policymaking.

It brings together evidence from psychology, philosophy, sociology, political science, and much more besides.

And I can't wait to share more details with you between now and next March!

We can follow these four choices down a total of 16 "decision tree" pathways to reach the particular form of morphological analysis we decide to use.

Or, if you like, we choose between 16 morphological "roles" we can play when we carry out our analyses.

Happy theorising! ✨

Next, we look directly at the denotative meanings or the connotations of ideological and conceptual labels, and we examine how these are determined by their internal logic or their surrounding context.

My argument is quite straightforward.

Whenever we do ideological analysis, we choose between looking at ideologies or at the concepts they are made up of, and we analyse them in either a holistic or disaggregated way.

So pleased and proud that my Editorial on "The apotheosis of conceptual morphology" is now officially out along with the first issue of @jpolideologies.bsky.social of 2025!

Couldn't resist making space for a bit of the Upanishads in the epigraph...

New academic year, new chapter!

Delighted to announce that I've joined @blavatnikschool.bsky.social @uniofoxford.bsky.social as ESRC Policy Fellow and Researcher.

I'll be working with Heywood Fellow Lucy Smith to explore how #government can be better at #strategy

www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/mariu...